JUPITER, Fla. — We are really starting to wind down the spring now, with only three Grapefruit League games left on the Nationals' schedule, then Friday's exhibition against the Yankees on South Capitol Street in advance of Opening Day. (By the way, just checked Monday's forecast for D.C.: 66 degrees and partly cloudy. That'll work.)

The Nationals will face the Marlins on Opening Day, and they'll get a preview of Miami today here at Roger Dean Stadium. Dan Haren gets the start, hoping not to be plagued by the dead arm that took him down 10 days ago when he pitched in this same ballpark. Word is that Haren actually drove down from Viera last night to avoid the long bus ride on the morning of his start.

All the regulars are back in the lineup, with Kurt Suzuki catching. Bryce Harper will be looking to record his eighth consecutive base hit.

A friend of mine, big Yankee fan, was planning on going with her daughter and some friends–and got tickets long ago. She is revising her plans. It's spring break, so it wouldn't be a big financial ding for me to take the day off, but it's not my idea of fun to shiver in the stands for an exhibition game (though last year with the Red Sox was a lot of fun).Went by the Park today, the workers are out in force sprucing the place up. My printer isn't working (along with my other computer), so the ticket lady very nicely wrote down the game dates on my plan–no Opening Day (sniff). But it was too cold to stand out there and buy individual game tickets. They are refurbishing the little office for season ticket holders, so that was closed.

SonnyG10, I'm sure he does. I'm just wondering what the dollars would be to persuade him to stay. By June, someone will be injured, if not here then on another contending team. Right now, it seems like the good teams have their rotations set and they would want the same thing we do–stay in AAA as insurance. He needs a contending team that is missing a rotation piece. Texas?

And the Kid keeps his streak going, with a stolen base… I wonder what would happen if he kept hitting that way in the season. They could walk him, like they used to do with Barry Bonds, but his speed is also a threat.

Not that anyone cares but if its 54 degrees I do not need to be uncomfortable in an exhibition game. My best friend and I have traveled this area looking for craft beers and great pizza the last 3 years (retirement is really rough). Our plan is to get to the area early to check out the new places(Gordan Biersch & BlueJacket) that will not yet be open but just see how they look. If its not unbearable we might head into the stadium after a brew at Justin's but if its horrible we plan to metro over to Meridian Pint which is hosting a great event that afternoon in conjunction with the craft beer convention that is here this week. Later it will be all about the Nationals, for this game its all about the beer.

Boy this ticket exchange thing is NOT intuitive. Why don't they just bring up the schedule and you can move your ticket to the game you want, with games you can't exchange for blacked out. I have three windows open trying to figure it out. Also, they should bring up your games on a Nats schedule with your games highlighted.

Natslady – sorry you are having issues. I did not try and exchange games but moving games to my son was easy and my package was highlighted. As I moved one seat to him there were two little dots under my games and with each move the color changed. If I kept both tickets there were two in my color and if I gave him one it was one of each. I also got good answers from not only my agent but anyone who answered that number on the back of your new card. Good luck!

I was told the card came loaded with just your games and you actually have to email the pdf to either yourself or your partners so they can print out an actual ticket. I did that for the four or five games we are not going to together. It was not hard at all and I am a complete computer ludite.

Yeah, I don't have a working printer… Normally that's not a problem, as I don't print anything except my taxes. But, actually, now I'm needing to get this thing fixed. I'm about ready to unplug the computer and take it to the shop. Microsoft is REALLY annoying, and FedEx isn't far behind.

Haren's the part of the team I'm most worried about – we've got good position player depth, and bullpen depth is relatively cheaply obtained, but it's hard to get your hands on a starting pitcher in May if he doesn't work out without giving up some big pieces. Hopefully these would mostly be flyballs in a normal big league park.

It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count It doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count …

I agree with you, SC. Others give the excuse "It doesn't count" about a hundred times, but if spring training is anywhere near a "preview" of what we can expect during the regular season, especially this late in spring training, I don't think the Nats will be as "invincible" as the press and other "happy talkers" here think they will be.

I don't know if anyone here thinks they'll be anything like invincible? They have a good chance to be a very good team, I think, but nothing's guaranteed. The only people who consider them a lock are the national sportswriters looking to make dramatic predictions.

NatsNutty, it's not happy talk that insists that Spring Training means nothing. It's cold hard stats. Check out the Nats' record for the last 6 years. Year ST Record/Season Record2007: 11-17 / 73-892008: 12-18 / 58-1022009: 15-17 / 59-1032010: 10-20 / 69-932011: 15-14 / 80-81 2012: 12-17 / 98-64The Nats are 12-15 so far this spring. Care to make a prediction based on past performance of their record this year? If they lose the rest of their games, you could make a case for 58 or 98 wins, and if they win the rest, I guess they'l win 80 games.

A possible cause for Haren's bad day: it seems he had 9 days between starts. That seems a bit inadvisable? I guess the vet needs a little less time to get on a schedule than the younger guys, but I don't know if that's such a good idea for a guy coming back from injury…

Tim Kirkjian just said the Nats were the best team he's seen this spring. Look at Clip's ERA and WHIP–you think that's going to last all season? Espi's improved, Werth is solid. Gio looks good… Span will come around. So will Haren IF (big IF) if he's not hurt. The main thing is, to me, no one injured (except Garcia). Everyone is getting their work in.

The deal is back-loaded a lot, 222. Apparently, it's only worth about $9 million/year in present value. They still lose the draft pick (#17) and the pool money. I read that around this time of year the Brewers sell about 7,000 tickets a day, but when the Lohse signing was made public they sold $34,000. That's some fan club.

It's still real money to Lohse. At his age, it's probably a better outcome than taking the $13.3 qualifying offer the Cards made him and hoping for next year. No doubt it's a hit to the Brewers. Maybe they decided it was worth giving up that draft pick to avoid having to rely on Yovani Gallardo and four no names for a rotation. Remember when Greinke nixed a deal with the Nats to go there because he thought he had a better shot at the playoffs?

It appears that Harper — he of a 9 for 9 streak with a walk thrown in for good measure — is getting sent to the doctor because of increased swelling in his thumb. Apparently, the trainers have seen him for a few days, but not the doctors. You can't and shouldn't send everyone to a doctor every time there is an ache or pain, but it sure seems like we read a lot of stories about this team making diagnoses a bit late. Is this normal for big league teams to let things fester for days based on the player's instincts and the trainers. Why wouldn't you err on the side of caution with a player of Harper's ilk. Mind you, I routinely wait too long to seek medical advice for injuries and illness, but I support my family by sitting on my a$% all day at a computer.

Been thinking about how good the Nats will be this year. Easiest way (for me, anyway), is to go down the list of the regulars and see how I think they'll do compared to last year. Going around the infield:LaRoche: Don't see him having a better year next year, given his age and the fact that last year was a career season for him. Expect him to regress to his norm, which still ain't bad.Danny: Everything I'm hearing is that he seems to have grown up as a hitter. Looking for him to have similar power as last year, but with much better OBP and fewer KsDesmond: Tough one to call. Was last year a career year, or was it his new norm? I think the latter, at least until I see evidence otherwise. But I'm not going to predict an even better year this season.Zimm: His post-cortisone season was great. If he avoids injury, expect him to hit .290 or so, 30-35 homers, 110-120 RBIs with all the men on base he's going to see (assuming Harper doesn't clear the decks ahead of him). If LaRoche is having a poor season, expect Zimm to get a lot more walks.Catcher: Ramos/KSuz has to be a big improvement over KSuz/Whoever Isn't Injured. Glad to see Wilson in good shape. Now if he can just learn to hold on to throws from the outfield…Outfield: Werth: His OPS last year was right at his career average, despite falloff in home run power. He's much more of a doubles hitter now than in Philly, and strikes out a lot less. At 33, hard to see him having better OPS than his career average, but not having him miss half the season has to help the team.Center Field: Span won't hit nearly as well as Harper did last year, but should be better defensively.Harper: We won't miss Morse at the plate with Harper taking his place. Or in left field, for that matter. Anyone want to bet whether or not he'll hit .400?So at the plate, we have two players who (I think) won't be as good as last year (or the guy they replace in the field) – LaRoche and Span. Three who will put up similar numbers to last year (Desmand, Zimm, and Werth, adjusting the latter two for injury time). And three who should be better – Espinosa, catcher, Harper/left field. Overall, a somewhat better lineup.Starting Pitching:All the starters except Gio and Haren are at the stage of their careers where they're maturing. So I'm looking for all of them to be better, for various reasons. Strasburg because 200 innings, and he looks stronger (have you seen his legs? Calves look like Popeye the Sailor's). Zimmermann because he apparently now has a changeup, which Boswell says is like teaching a gorilla to use a machine gun. Detwiler because he started showing last year that he trusts his stuff. I don't see Gio being better than last year – maybe a little less rattle-prone with experience. Haren… tough call; is he back from his injury last year? Or was giving up four homers to the Marlins today a harbinger of bad things to come?Starting Pitching conclusion: Three better, one regressing somewhat, one a big question mark.Bull pen: I really don't think it's going to be as much of a problem as some people here seem to think. Davy wants his starters to go longer this season, and there's no reason they shouldn't. With Soriano, Storen, Clippard, and the rest, finding two guys per game to pitch the eighth and ninth shouldn't be too hard.So I think we're definitely a somewhat stronger team than last year's 98-win squad. Would be interested to know other people think. I know at least one guy sees them at 81-81…

Candide does a goodf analysis — except for the outfield, his logic here is flawed. You don't compare Morse to Harper – Harper was there last year. You compare Span to Morse — you compare personnel change, not who is playing the position. Span cannot even begin to compete with Morse at the plate. Defensively he is better, but Nats won 98 games without Span, but can they win 98 games without Morse? remains to be seen.Haren: an unmitigated disaster in the offing. Is he washed up? Is this the real Haren? If it is, Rizzo just wasted 13 million bucks. 13 mil for Haren, what a joke.Let go of Young while you pay a washed up Haren 13 million — oh, that's very smart.Meanwhile, Davey declares Haren is his #4? Not only does Davey talk stupid at times, but he disses his players, in this case Detweiler. Look for an interesting year. Rizzo's magic dust might be all gone.

To Rabbit 34: Nothing wrong with Haren that a big ball park won't fix. Ha Ha. Got news for you: an American Legion Fastball aint gonna get anyone out — big park or small. When you're throwing pure pus up there at 86-87, you can barely get good high school kids out. He looks terrible.

"You don't compare Morse to Harper – Harper was there last year. You compare Span to Morse — you compare personnel change, not who is playing the position."That's basically what he did. It's like a double switch. You don't dwell on who bumped who where, you look at the lineup before and after.

Let's just blame the wind and move on. I hope that was seriously the case. I can't imagine Haren being so HR-prone in regular season.from numbers, he seems to be generating more groundouts than flyouts. he should be fine with that. anyways ST numbers don't mean much.

Steve Hayes said… To the person who wants to bet whether or not Harper will hit .400? Uh, I think you need to calm down a bit, maybe take a Xanax. I'll take the bet. $1000 says Harper won't hit .400. easy money.Yeah, he almost certainly won't hit .400. Not this year, anyway…

Well, he didn't say he wanted to bet, he asked, rhetorically, who does. But having said that … you sound pretty sure, Steve Hayes. Sucker bet, no doubt. I mean, nobody is gonna hit .400, that's crazy, right? So you'd give pretty good odds on that grand?